Maps and Pictures for History Teachers - Part III

Dear Teachers,

I have been scanning old pictures from history books, and throwing in pictures I've taken at historic sites or in museums. Feel free to use any of these you can in your classrooms.

 

I'm retired; might as well help out the young educators. None of these are now under copyright.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                John J. Viall

Loveland City Schools, Ohio (1975-2008)

When you are discussing the environment, a good picture sometimes helps.
A lake near the top of Tioga Pass, leading into Yosemite National Park.

Coastal redwood, California. Redwoods can reach 360 feet.

That's like standing a football field, including endzones upright.

Most of my students had never been west of the Mississippi.
They were impressed to know Wyoming had six people per square mile.
Picture taken north of Rawlins, during the blogger's bicycle ride across the USA.

Abandoned farmhouse in Kansas.
Today many parts of the state have fewer people than in 1890.

I recently learned that Kansas had more people than Florida in 1920.
Your students won't know that the spread of air conditioning in the 60s
changed thinking about where to live.

A fanciful depiction - since there were no casualties during this fight. 

Lee at Appomattox. I'd ask students to discuss how is men must have felt.

General Thomas (right) at Chickamauga.
James A. Garfield (left), later president, had ridden through heavy fire
to tell him most of the Union line had crumbled, but urged him to hold.

.

 
Most of my African American students didn't know what the Confederate flag
really meant.

For fifty years, you could see this barn off I-71, going north from Cincinnati.

A good map to show students how Lee and Jackson destroyed Hooker.

"Fighting Joe" Hooker - confused at Chancellorsville.

Football gear in 1920. (I'm afraid you might get rude comment about "b,"
before students would realize it's a nose guard.

In 1905, nineteen players are killed, leading to demands for rules reform.

What role does sports play in modern American society?
The blogger and his son, Seth, left, at the 2022 Super Bowl.

We paid $2,500 for each ticket.
Are sports overblown?

Desperate Irish - 1846. No wonder they came here.
My students loved to discuss their family backgrounds.
The blogger's roots are Irish on one side.

I'm not sure there has ever been any immigrant group
that wasn't disliked by some other group.

I would ask students: "What do you think the gentleman
in the lower right corner is thinking?"
"And what would the man at lower left think if he spied him?"

San Francisco nearly emptied out - gold seekers heading for the diggings.
Stories about finding gold in 1849, or even gold coins in your back yard in tin cans, as one California couple did in 2014, always sparked interest.

Story of the backyard find.

We often had a good discussion about the difference between the "law" and "justice."
For example, the law in Nazi Germany.
Or Jim Crow law.

Lincoln: using the back of a shovel to work out math problems.
How much does motivation matter in school?

This blogger was totally unmotivated in school,
and we had good discussions on the topic in class.

Historians used to rank Buchanan as our worst president.

I guess I'd dare a teacher today to
ask students who they think the worst president ever would be.

My students had very little idea how the draft works.
It made for an interesting discussion.

Farragut at Mobile Bay.
I don't know if anyone cares about him anymore.

Plus, if it's not on a standardized test....

Well, "Damn the torpedoes..."

The battle that made wooden ships obsolete.
A good topic today might be: "How will drones change modern warfare?"

What emotions would these men have felt?
Or women back home when they heard the news?

April 1865 - Lee's starving troops can no longer continue the fight.
Soldier at left is picking berries.

There was great enthusiasm at the start of the war to enlist.
That concept was interesting to my classes.

People never change. Lazy guards in 1690 built snowmen
and hoped no one would get close enough to notice.
The French and Indians weren't fooled.

Swedes in America - who even remembers???

The Dutch settlers introduced "koekjes" to America.
Plus donuts!
Can your students figure out that the first word is our "cookies?"

What were the folks in the canoes thinking?

Exploring was a dangerous business for all kinds of reasons.
My classes did like to discuss the reasons they might want to go exploring today.

I met Rick Arnett riding across the USA in 2011. He was trying to get over a divorce, and said he hoped to do 10,000 miles and write a book about his travels.
He said he sometimes got up to 70 mph on the long downhill passes.
I told him I always lost my nerve around 45 mph.

If your students have never seen Nevada - a lot of it looks like this.
Picture taken along Highway 50, billed "The Loneliest Highway in America."

Of course, my students appreciated this picture from my ride across the USA.
Somewhere in New York.

One of the joys of adventure: a sunrise over my camp in Utah.

I told every student I ever had they should drive across the USA at least once in their lives.
Laura B. came back years later and told me she took my advice.
The Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park.

Tioga Pass takes you into Yosemite National Park, from the Nevada size.
For scale, there's a white dot on the road, above my handlebars.
That's one of those large mobile campers.

Spanish soldiers turn the war dogs loose.
Cruelty in war...

Maps and Pictures for History Teachers - Part II

 

All of the pictures in this post come from my own collection, gathered in part while bicycling across the USA twice (2007 and 2011) to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Use any you like. I’ll explain in a few cases how I might apply them in school – but I’m retired. Can’t say for sure my ideas would work.

Gold bar recovered the from wreck of the Spanish galleon.

The Spanish explored for three reasons: "God, gold and glory."

John Brown.

For decades you could see this barn roof, off I-71, as you headed north from Cincinnati. It was finally painted over recently. Someone this blogger knows did sneak an Obama sign into a nearby field, next to a burned cross that also graced the property.

Rosa Parks.

Zachary Taylor - hero of the Mexican War.

Polio vaccination card - family records.

The future teacher in his hippie days.
We had great discussions in class about values,
including how hippies looked at the world.

I wanted to show students that one county in Ohio had as many people as 25.
Obviously, my graphic-creation skills were pretty weak.

I battled every year to convince students that the people in history are just like us, so that history, really is "the study of people." This is Chimney Rock, a guidepost on the Oregon Trail, in what is now western Nebraska. The Native Americans called it "Elk's Penis."
There's a lesson there - but not sure how you could delicately get it across to pupils.

Joseph Smith - Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.

Booker T. Washington.

Lewis and Clark at Fort Clatsop, on the Oregon coast.

This and the next few pictures are all from Bodie, California, a ghost town.
I'm still working on writing up an entry for my blog to insert for the year "1877."

For now, I'll note that Bodie is at about 8,000 feet above sea level.
In the late 1870s it had a population of as much as 10,000; but then the gold ran out.

I think a discussion could be had about how cities can decline, and entire civilizations. If I were still teaching, I might include the Mayans, the Assyrians,
and the risks to coastal areas in an era of climate change..

Bodie is now a protected site -  state park.

Remains of a wagon bed.

Bodie church.

Rangers live in a couple of the homes, to protect the park.

Ore cart.

Wagon for hauling ore.

A few buildings still stand in decent condition.

Others have to be supported.

A fire in 1932 swept away many buildings; population by then had dropped almost to zero.

Bodie school house. The teacher was said to carry a pistol to work.
It was a rough town, averaging one murder per day, according to legend.

Equipment for raising and lowering men and ore up or down in the main shaft of a mine.

Opium found many uses in Bodie.

Transportation to the Bodie cemetery.

Bodie scene. Old mine tailings can be seen on the hill beyond.
Winters in Bodie are brutal; and no trees grow nearby.

I had good results one year, asking students to write a quick story
about a ghost who lived in Bodie.

In an age of standardized testing, I'd probably be crucified!!!

Bodie panorama - main road into and out of town in distance.

Bodie street.

The bank at Bodie is definitely closed.

Daniel Boone - who never wore a coonskin cap.

Life expectancy in Colonial Days was probably 35.

Nuts! I blurred this picture years ago.
But that's a bone saw from the Civil War.
(I tried to make sure students understood there was little glory in war.

Colonial partying!

A colonial gentleman rocking a wig.

Scene from the Arkansas River Valley in Colorado.
Good land - so you had to kick out the natives.

I camped here on one of my bicycle rides across the USA.
We used to talk about Mountain Men, and various explorers.
Why would it be an exciting life?

The blogger in Colorado. He'd get thin on his long rides. 
Then he'd come home and get fat again.
(He may ride again to raise money for JDRF in 2024.)

I did tell my students they should seek out adventure - and told them they all needed to drive across the country at least once in their lives.

More gold from the Atocha.

Cannon recovered from the Atocha.

The story of Mel Fisher, who found the wreck is interesting, if you're not familiar. 

Silver ingots from the wreck.

Bust of John D. Rockefeller.

(I wonder if the sculptor tried to make him look ghoulish?)

Gettysburg scene.

Bust of General Pickett: he was 38 when he married his wife, 17.

The museum at Gettysburg is fantastic. Even my wife had to be dragged out.

Devices for killing humans.

View from Little Round Top.

Limber and caisson.

Some artillerists put a hole in this farmer's barn.

Grapeshot could kill and wound a dozen men easily.

I tried to stress the phenomenal losses regiments in this battle suffered.

View from Devil's Den, looking at Little Round Top.

I took this picture after I retired. I'm sure students would notice the shape of the rock at left.
Good luck tamping down the semi-rude comments?

Devil's Den seen from Little Round Top.

Union officer killed in battle; now tourists have rubbed his nose until it shines.

Union troops advancing to stop Pickett's Charge.

The climax of Pickett's Charge.

Almost every soldier killed or maimed left behind a distraught family, 
or left them to help him (or her) recover. At least one female was found in Rebel gray,
among Pickett's dead.

A stray bullet pierced this table.

Union regiment going into action.

Civil War reenactor - hoop skirt style.

I think this is the First Minnesota going into action on July 2, 1863.

I go to museums and sometimes forget to take adequate notes.
That regiment suffered 81% casualties.

The Preamble.

Picture I took during a visit to D.C.
Good luck discussing politics in class these days, young teachers!

(I will say I resisted the urge to purchase.)

Paul Dunbar; I did write up a good reading on his life for students.

Kansas: The Sunflower State.

Abandoned farmhouse - Kansas.

Large areas of the western United States have lost population since 1890.

Rear view of same home.

The high school in Ness County, Kansas was abandoned.

Ness County, taken during a bicycle ride in 2007.

It is definitely true: Kansas is flat.

Heading west, peddle power.

I met these riders, peddling east, in the middle of Kansas.
I took down their names, but lost them.

I used to talk to students quite a bit about giving great effort.
(I didn't in school, myself, and even quit track in seventh grade.)

The Marine Corps taught me a great deal about motivation.

Columbia River Gorge, not far from Portland, Oregon.

Note truck on I-84.

Pioneer cabin - and car?

Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.

Wyoming - north of Rawlins.

Wyoming, looking backwards from a hill, while peddling north, toward Yellowstone.

I used this picture to illustrate the sparse population in that state:
roughly six persons per square mile.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at villejjv@yahoo.com. Or you can find me on Facebook, John Viall.